The kids were not supposed to be in camp this week. However, I managed to sign them up at the last minute. The new swim team that I want Punksin to get on has finally announced their try-out schedules (a month from now) and I wanted to make sure she got practice, since she’s really been out of the pool since late June. So, I managed to sign her up for a swim tech camp for this week and the next, from 9-12, where she will focus on strokes. This week is freestyle and backstroke, and next week will be breaststroke and butterfly.

Since she was going to camp, I figured it would be good if Pudding could also go to camp, and he really really wanted to, so I managed to get HIM back in as well.

And…it’s just as well, I think. Because…my depression is back with a vengeance.

It’s…awful. I feel empty inside. Or perhaps the best word isn’t empty, actually. I almost WISH I felt empty. I feel…breathless. That’s the best way I can describe it. Every breath hurts, as though it expands the pain inside. And when I exhale, none of the pain leaves.

I just took another Klonopin because I need that numbness. There is a pain surging through me that is indescribable right now. I wait impatiently for nighttime so I can just…go to sleep and be unaware of it. But even then, it follows me…last night I had a nightmare from which I woke up screaming. The Tech Guru had to shake me out of it and although I fell back asleep fairly quickly (thanks to the sleeping pills I took last night), my sleep was restless.

Right now I feel as though I am just…going through the motions of life. I wake up. I get the kids ready. I bathe and drive everyone where they need to go. I have zero appetite, so…I don’t eat, and sometimes I have to remember to cook for the other people in here that actually want food. All I want to do is sleep or be in some kind of stupor where I don’t feel this way anymore. Because it hurts so much to feel this pit in my stomach, to feel so lost and defeated.

The kids are not in camp for as long as they were over the past few weeks – previously I picked them up at 3:00 and now I pick up Punksin at 12:15 and Pudding at 1:00. Maybe that’s a good thing. I think it’s good that they are out of the house doing their own thing and having a blast, but I also think with too much time to myself, I would just…I don’t know. I don’t know what I would do with that time. Cry, most definitely. Sleep, oh yes. Drink? Perhaps; to be honest, the drinks haven’t been my go-to anymore as they were in days of yore. At least when the kids are with me, I have some motions that I have to go through and although the pain is still present and flaunting itself in my face, I can try my best to ignore it or see around it to get the things that need to be done around here, done. But it’s not easy, not easy at all to put on my game face and pretend that I am okay when inside feels such raw pain.

But…I have to, right?

I have to.

When does it end? I don’t know. I don’t know. I wish I knew. I wish someone could give me a date to look forward to and say, “Hey, on this date, your searing pain will be over.” Then I could countdown the days or something. But it doesn’t really work like that… I just have to continue putting one foot ahead of the other and hope that one day, when I put my foot down, I no longer feel hot coals underneath, sending my body and soul and heart up in flames.

On days like this…there doesn’t seem to be enough medication in the world to make me numb enough. The Klonopin will dull things somewhat, but…the pain will still be there. It is unrelenting, it LITERALLY leaves me taking quick shallow breaths, it renders me immobile and just…curled up inside. Even as I walk, or drive, or cook, or run errands, the pain comes with me, and inside I curl up around it, embracing it, not because I love it, but because I have no choice. I cannot escape it. It has become my best friend, my lover, my life companion. It has me, and it won’t let go.